“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NKJV).
Gratitude is the springboard for the life of praise and joy. To be thankful is to be joyful. The grateful heart is the heart that knows and produces the joyful sound. Ingratitude has no melody. To be ungrateful is to be joyless. An ingrate is grouchy and hardly experiences or expresses any thankful joy towards God and fellow human beings. An ingrate is self-focused, always whining for what he lacks and counting his losses. He compares the worst of him with the best of others and end up accusing God of being partial. A grateful person, on the contrary, is contented with what he has and is always busy counting his blessings, therefore he is full of testimonies. Ingratitude is an endemic human frailty. It is the nature of the fallen humanity, being a bequeathal from Satan. Ingratitude transformed Lucifer – the morning star or the light-bringer– into Satan, the prince of darkness. Ingratitude is the lifestyle of the natural human being. Just consider a few of these examples of how the natural man lives naturally ungratefully. He enjoys the warmth of the sun he did not create and never pauses to thank the maker. He enjoys the life-giving benefits of the rain without ever bothering to appreciate its source. He eats fruits from trees he did not plant and forgets to thank the person that planted them. He drinks water from the cistern he did not dig and pretend that the cistern dug itself. The ungrateful feels everybody owes him an obligation of kindness, and yet feels no sense of indebtedness to any person. Sin makes one ungrateful. It looks plausible to argue that ingratitude was the venom the ancient Serpent injected into Eve to make her believe that God was not good enough to her and her husband. They became ungrateful and ipso facto sinful. Iniquity is ingratitude in full bloom.
Gratitude is key to joy, sanctification. Thank God in everything, not for everything. Approach Him with joyful hearts, celebrate His goodness in Jesus’ name.
God commands us to be thankful in everything. Paul is succinct and clear when he articulates the mind of God to us – “in everything give thanks.” The instruction is to give thanks in everything and not necessarily for everything. We cannot thank God for things that are at variance to His nature and character –things that are sinful. However, we can and should give God thanks in everything because we know that everything is within the ambit of His sovereign dictate. Jesus instructs us, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29-31). If a creature as tiny and seemingly insignificant as a sparrow receives so much attention from God, how much more you whom He purchased with the Blood of His only begotten Son. You are certainly much more important than all the sparrows in the world. You can be sure that God knows all about your challenges and triumphs in life. He is with you in every context of life you may find yourself from time to time. He never leaves us nor forsakes us, but broods over us with love even in the darkest of circumstances. Thanksgiving magnifies God and makes His Presence loom-large in our varied circumstances, even in those that are orchestrated by the devil. God knows how to “give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). Joseph told his brothers, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:20). God turned a design to harm Joseph into a stepping stone to his greatness and fulfilment in life. It certainly makes sense to thank God in everything.
Thanksgiving has sanctifying efficacy. It brings the beauty of heaven upon earthly realities and elevates the mundane to the celestial plane. Paul instructed Timothy “For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4-5). Thanksgiving receives what God gives us, sanctifying it by the word of God and prayer, it represents it to God in worshipful admiration. In the same manner your gifts to God be it big or small, if it is given from a thankful heart, is acceptable to God as sweet-smelling savour. Thanksgiving reveals its sanctifying power in its ability to displace sin in the lives of believers. “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4, ESV). A tongue that is wholly given to thanksgiving hardly dwells in the obscene. One of the ways to tame the tongue and make it a powerful instrument in the worship of God is to occupy it all the time with thanksgiving. Thankfulness and sinfulness do not cohabit in one tongue. Thanksgiving is glorifying to God and sanctifying to the thankful. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15). Wherever thanksgiving abounds, there the glory of God dwells. Today is our annual Thanksgiving and Agape Celebration Sunday. As we file out to present our thanksgiving offerings to God, let us do so with full assurance that God respects our gifts and blesses us if we give it to honour Him with thanksgiving and love to Him. Bear in mind that lack of joy takes the bloom out of our thanksgiving. Therefore, let us approach God with joyful hearts and bring Him the sacrifices of our praise and materials in celebration of His ever radiant goodness in Jesus name.
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